Well, today we started really early and the rain in Marshalltown, IA was still coming down. This made for a wet & COLD April morning. We hit the show site, and while Jenny & Heather set up camp in the Obedience building, Ginger headed over to the conformation rings and grabbed our arm bands for us.
Novice was up first. This would be Karma’s debut. Gunner was up first and did a LOVELY job. Then Jenny and Karma headed in….and…Karma was SPECTACULAR! She was sitting at a 193 going into the stays. Sit stay — check! Just the down stay remained, and 2.25 minutes in she stood up! AHHH!! In her defense, it was a concrete ring in an uninsulated barn. With all the rain outside it was quite chilly, but many, losing a Q on the down stay hurt! The good news — GG was a very good boy and got his Q AND a 2nd place!
After the awards were handed out, we ran over to the conformation ring. There was a large special entry with everyone on the way to Nationals. GG was out of the ribbons this time, but Karmie was bulled out for Select Bitch! Too bad it wasn’t a major, as she would have finished her Grand Championship. But we were just entering for some ring practice before Nationals, so the Select nod is just icing on the cake. We said a few quick “see you soon” to our friends who were staying the rest of the weekend in Iowa, and then jumped in the car and headed for Ohio! It was a full day of travel, leaving Iowa at 9:00am and arriving in Huron just before 7:00pm. BUT some highlights along the way:
–Lots of girl and dog talk
–Heather knitting up a storm in the backseat — Proud to say we now own a blaze orange ear warmer for hunting season.
AND!!!!
–A text from Marc saying he and Halo picked up a Senior Hunter leg today! This was the Senior debut for BOTH Marc and Halo. Handling in Senior is MUCH different than Junior, so Marc had a lot of new things to think about; as did Halo. When we started training her this Spring, it was such a pipe dream to think she would pick up a leg in her debut. We are over the moon proud of her! The picture above was texted to Jenny during the road-trip — gotta say, it felt like we flew the rest of the drive.